Metaversed Launches Clever Zebra

The folks from Metaversed, namely Nick Wilson and Caleb Booker, have been talking for a while about transitioning away from news coverage towards providing services. Now they've done it with the launch of Clever Zebra, a solutions provider for free, customizable Second Life builds. Currently the only offering is for Zebra Corporate, which offers an auditorium of various sizes, several offices, an orientation spot, show floor, amphitheater and more. Basically, it gives users an open-source-licensed set of building blocks for the basics of a Second Life corporate build. "Anyone can pick up a copy of Zebra Corporate for free, and they will have permissions to copy, modify and transfer under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3," says the company. "We’ll be focusing on value-added services, and we’ll be empowering virtual world engineers and designers to create."

The value-added service is where Clever Zebra hopes to monetize. While small businesses may be attracted to the free cookie cutter format, there are still hurdles and complications to building in Second Life. Also, it seems less likely that larger companies (or any seriously pursuing a virtual worlds strategy) will want to stick with a generic build. To that end Clever Zebra will offer premium help with installation and customization, tools to add to the build, support, training, event management, and consultancy.

As Kzero points out this seems best aimed at B2B builds, which rely more on conference center approaches, than B2C builds, which are often packaged around a Whiz-Bang theme promoting entertainment and tourism. Those consumer-oriented companies, as SLAmbling argues, will likely still go to professional developers for ground-up builds.

Look for a more complete launch, including, it seems, a switch over from Metaversed, next week.

Click below for Nick Wilson's own pitch:

Comments

[Aleister Kronos]

As I see it, the real challenge here for Clever Zebra is in generating sufficient income.

To quote from my own post:
"The business model, in large measure, relies on selling people’s time – time for customising, time for training and support, time for consultancy. Unlike virtual products, which can be sold over and over without any further intervention, people’s time is not a scalable commodity."

Also, even with an increased potential client base (and this is open to question), the cost of sale - in both money and, importantly, time - is likely to be high.

I really like the concept, but am not sure this will fly without some major tweaking.

[csven]

It's funny. Back when I was arguing with LL on whether RL companies/trademarks could enter SL, I was always thinking that the push would be for viral mobile content; not static builds. So for me, this solution doesn't impress because it's a continuation of the odd "importance of place" real world concept being mapped onto virtual spaces (discussed in detail here - http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1266 ).

[Digado]

Good initiative but the business model of Clever Zebra Corporate doesn't sound really convincing - being based on the open source 'mash up' model which has yet to succeed in 2d webspace.

My 3 ups and downs on Clever Zebra are over on http://digado.nl/clever-zebra-the-open-source-office.html

[Prokofy Neva]

A horse in striped pajamas?
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/01/a-horse-in-stri.html#more

When you offer businesses something for $0, they value it at $0.

Buildings in Second Life are merely external visualizations of the image which the client wishes to buy, and a visual manifestation of your time holding his hand through that experience. Dismantle that or devalue that at your peril.

Second Life itself is a Clever Zebra, itself is a business in a box because it gives even dummies like me the ability to build simple things and if I can't do that much, for very low cost, I can go buy prefab stores by Barnesworth and other great content creators and support the inworld economy. I think it's good if a wider variety and size of business finds more ways to enter Second Life, but I don't think disseminating more opensourcenik culture and freebies is the way to build value. I think the interactivity of construction and consulting businesses with fee-paid work and real and virtual businesses is a better model.

[Thinker]

I watched the video on youtube and heard 57Miles say the best part is that it's Free, Free, Free - boy, does that not sound like Web 1.0 - putting up boxes and customizable (:-0) structures for new companies will for sure dilute the progress of Second Life as it attempts to move forward with realistic environments for business that mimic real life. There is the old saying you get what you pay for - so if this solution is Free, Free, Free it should be interesting to See, See, See. And, I agree with the post that it's not about location - "importance of place' in Second Life it's about gaining attention in an interactive collaborative environment not another empty sim.